Crop material such as hay, straw and the like is commonly harvested by compacting the material into bales tied with twine. These bales can be small square bales that can be handled by hand, but more commonly now they are large bales that can weigh up to 2000 pounds. These large bales can be rectangular or cylindrical, and when feeding such bales it is common to use a bale processor to remove shredded crop material from the bale with a disintegrator or flail apparatus and then and discharge the shredded material onto the ground or into a feed bunk. Such a bale processor is disclosed for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,340,040 to Bussiere et al. and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,033,683 to Taylor.
Some double bale processors are configured to carry two of these large bales end to end in the bale processing chamber. An exhaust opening extends along the bottom length of the chamber and shredded material from the bales is discharged laterally out of the bale processor through the opening adjacent to each bale, such that shredded material from the front bale is discharged from the side of the bale processor forward of the material from the rear bale. Such machines allow the shredded material from two different bales to be combined.
The quality of crop material varies significantly, and often has low palatability such that the animals being fed are reluctant to eat it, especially if there is a choice. It is known then to place a low palatability bale and a high palatability bale in a double bale processor, and discharge the two together as described above so that the two qualities of material are mixed, and the palatability of the combination is improved so that both the low and high quality bales are consumed. Similarly it is sometimes desired to combine bales of entirely different crop materials to provide a desired animal ration.
A problem with current double bale processors is that discharging one bale at the front of the machine and discharging the other bale rearward of the front discharge results in a layered combination, rather than a thoroughly mixed combination of crop material. Where the poor quality is layered on top, the animals can pick through the poor material and find the layer of higher quality material under it, eating the higher quality and wasting much of the poorer quality material. Similarly if the higher quality material is on top, the animals simply pick it off and leave the rest. Thoroughly mixing the material would result in improved consumption of the whole combination since it would be much more difficult for the animal to separate it, and would thus reduce waste.